🔗 Share this article

“Stuff occurs.” Just two words. That’s all it took for Donald Trump to effectively dismiss what is arguably the most notorious journalist killing of the past ten years – and in so doing sank to a fresh depth in his disregard toward journalists, for the media – and for the truth.

The Context

The US president’s dismissal of the killing of prominent journalist the Washington Post columnist came during a press conference with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman – a man whom the US intelligence found in a recent assessment had ordered the kidnap and killing of the journalist in that year. (Prince Mohammed has denied involvement.)

The US intelligence services were not the only ones to determine the murder – which took place in the Saudi diplomatic building in Istanbul and in which the 59-year-old journalist was drugged and cut apart – was approved at the highest levels. An investigation led by then UN special rapporteur, Agnès Callamard, reached comparable findings.

International Response

For a brief period, nations were in agreement in their criticism of Saudi Arabia’s actions. The United States imposed sanctions and travel restrictions in that year over the killing, although it refrained of sanctioning the crown prince himself. Since then, the kingdom has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the crown prince’s visit to the US capital seemed to be the ultimate sign of that rehabilitation.

Presidential Comments

Opponents of the government had strongly criticized the visit. But what was evident at the White House was worse than could have been imagined. Not only did the president honor Prince Mohammed but he seemed to alter the facts – and then blamed the victim. The crown prince, Trump asserted when asked, knew nothing about the murder – in direct contradiction to what his country’s own spy agencies concluded four years ago. Moreover, the president said: “Many individuals didn’t like that person that you’re talking about, whether you approve of him or didn’t like him, things happen.”

Established Conduct

This represents a new and abject point for a president who has made no attempt to hide of his contempt for the truth – or for the media. He has smeared reporters (he called ABC news, whose reporter asked the inquiry about the journalist at the Saudi press conference “false information”), berated them in public (he called one a “piggy” this week for asking about his relationship with the disgraced financier the convicted criminal), taken legal action against news outlets for eye-watering sums of money in vexatious law suits, and called for news outlets he disapproves of to lose their licenses.

He has forced established media out of the official briefing group for refusing to use terminology of his preference, and he has slashed funding for essential public media at domestically and vital independent media internationally.

Wider Consequences

All of that has fostered an environment in which journalists are manifestly less safe in the US, but one in which their targeting – and indeed murder – becomes not just unimportant (“incidents occur”) but acceptable (“many individuals disliked that person”).

It is unsurprising that that year was the deadliest year on file for the press in the over three decades the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has been tracking this information: a ongoing neglect to bring to justice those accountable for journalist killings has created a culture of impunity in which journalists’ killers are actually able to get away with murder and so persist in these actions.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the Middle Eastern nation, which is responsible for the deaths of over two hundred media workers in the recent period.

Societal Impact

The effect on the public is profound. Attacks on journalists are attacks on the truth. They are undermining of reality. They are violations of our rights to know and on our liberty to exist without fear and securely.

On Thursday, CPJ gathers for its yearly International Press Freedom awards. My message there is the same as my one for Trump: such events may occur. But it is our duty to make sure they do not.